their corresponding Flagstar underwriters" and increasing Flagstar's loan volume by 200%-300% (37).
The main reengineering change for any organization would be increased reliance on technology and the need to bring groupware users up to operational speed--hence implicitly a need for increased and more precise training. The learning curve, complicated by security concerns and systemic vulnerability to technology, could be an impediment to successful intranet usage. But these are already factors of technology-driven enterprises. Further, they seem outweighed by potential savings to time and possibly support staffing, as well as the profit potential in instant-gratification information delivery.
2. These days, expert systems are a feature of minimal literacy for high-tech banking. When using an expert system, a user selects from a predetermined list of attributes that, when analyzed by the expert system, provides the answer to a given question. At its simplest, the expert system functions as a help desk. For example, the knowledge base could be programmed so that when a user punches in his access code, account number, and (say) the number 5 or the pound sign, he obtains his account balance. The number 3 plus a check number plus star can tell him whether that check has cleared. Similarly, bank-card accounts are routinely activated only when a credit card holder who has received a card by mail calls an 800 number and punches in the account number and/or access code (PIN number). Alternatively, use of new ATM cards, plus PIN number, activates the new card deactivates previous ones--all with a view toward diminishing credit card fraud. Indeed, an expert system can be programmed to flag credit-card-usage events that the
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